This study introduces a new algorithm to determine size independent values of fracture energy, fracture toughness, and fracture process zone length in three-point bending specimens with shallow to deep notches. By using the exact beam theory, a concept of equivalent notch length is introduced for specimens with no notches in order to predict the peak loads with acceptable precisions. Moreover, the method considers the variations of fracture process zone length and effects of higher order terms of stress field in each specimen size. In this paper, it was demonstrated that the use of some recently developed size effect laws raises some concerns due to the use of nonlinear regression analysis. By using a comprehensive fracture test data, provided by Hoover and Bazant, the algorithm has been assessed. It could be concluded that the proposed algorithm can facilitate a powerful tool for size effect study of three-point bending specimens with different notch lengths.

Today, buildings are exposed to the effects such as explosion and impact loads. Usually, explosion and impact loads that act on the buildings such as nuclear power plants, airports, defense industry and military facilities, can occur occasionally on the normal buildings because of some reasons like drop weight impacts, natural gas system explosions, and terrorist attacks. Therefore, it has become important to examine the behavior of reinforced concrete (RC) structures under impact loading. Development of computational mechanics has facilitated the modeling of such load conditions. In this study, three kinds of RC walls that have different geometric forms (square, ellipse, and circle) and used in guardhouses with same usage area were modeled with Abaqus finite element software. The three configurations were subjected to the same impact energy to determine the geometric form that gives the best behavior under the impact loading. As a result of the analyses, the transverse impact forces and failure modes of RC walls under impact loading were obtained. Circular formed (CF) reinforced concrete wall which has same impact resistance in each direction had more advantages. Nonetheless, in the case of the impact loading occurring in the major axis direction of the ellipse (EF-1), the elliptical formed reinforced concrete wall has higher impact resistance.

In this study, nonlinear vibration and stability of a polymeric pipe reinforced by single-walled carbon naotubes (SWCNTs) conveying fluid-nanoparticles mixture flow is investigated. The Characteristics of the equivalent composite are determined using Mori-Tanaka model considering agglomeration effects. The surrounding elastic medium is simulated by orthotropic visco-Pasternak medium. Employing nonlinear strains-displacements, stress-strain energy method the governing equations were derived using Hamilton\'s principal. Differential quadrature method (DQM) is used for obtaining the frequency and critical fluid velocity. The influence of volume percent of SWCNTs, agglomeration, geometrical parameters of pipe, viscoelastic foundation and fluid velocity are shown on the frequency and critical fluid velocity of pipe. Results showed the increasing volume percent of SWCNTs leads to higher frequency and critical fluid velocity.

This study is focused on the investigation for similitude the requirements between prototype and scaled models to determine the structural behavior of concrete load bearing systems. The scaling concept has been utilized in many engineering branches, has been assisted to engineers and scientists for obtain the behavior of the prototype by using scaled model. The scaling can be done for two purposes, either scaling up or scaling down depending upon the application. Because, scaled down models are the experimentation on scaled models is cheaper than huge structures. These models also provide facilities for experimental work. Similarity relationships between systems are created either by field equations of the system or by dimensional analysis. Within this study, similarity relationships were obtained by both methods. The similarity relations obtained are applied to different load bearing systems and it is determined that the similarity relation is a general expression. In this study, as an example, column, frame, cantilever beam and simple beam are chosen and 1/2, 1/5 and 1/10 scales are applied. The results are compared with the analytical results which are obtained by creating of the finite element models with SAP2000 software of different scaled load bearing systems. The analysis results of all systems are examined and it is determined that the scale factors are constant depending on the scale types for different load bearing systems.

FE models for complex or large-scaled structures that need detailed modeling of structural components are usually constructed using commercial analysis softwares. Updating of such FE model by conventional sensitivity-based methods is difficult since repeated computation for perturbed parameters and manual calculations are needed to obtain sensitivity matrix in each iteration. In this study, an FE model updating procedure avoiding such difficulties by using response surface (RS) method and a Pareto-based multiobjective optimization (MOO) was formulated and applied to FE models constructed with a commercial analysis package. The test building is a low-rise reinforced concrete building that has been seismically retrofitted. Dynamic properties of the building were extracted from vibration tests performed before and after the seismic retrofits, respectively. The elastic modulus of concrete and masonry, and spring constants for the expansion joint were updated. Two RS functions representing the errors in the natural frequencies and mode shape, respectively, were obtained and used as the objective functions for MOO. Among the Pareto solutions, the best compromise solution was determined using the TOPSIS (Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) procedure. A similar task was performed for retrofitted building by taking the updating parameters as the stiffness of modified or added members. Obtained parameters of the existing building were reasonably comparable with the current code provisions. However, the stiffness of added concrete shear walls and steel section jacketed members were considerably lower than expectation. Such low values are seemingly because the bond between new and existing concrete was not as good as the monolithically casted members, even though they were connected by the anchoring bars.

This study used a volumetric method for design. The control group used waste Liquid Crystal Displayplay (LCD) glass powder to replace cement (0%, 10%, 20%, 30%), and the PZT group used Pd-Zr-Ti piezoelectric (PZT) powder to replace 5% of the fine aggregate to make cement mortar. The engineering and the mechanical and electricity properties were tested; flow, compressive strength, ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV), water absorption and resistivity (SSD and OD electricity at 50 V and 100 V) were determined; and the correlations were determined by linear regression. The compressive strength of the control group (29.5-31.8 MPa) was higher than that of the PZT group (25.1-29 MPa) by 2.8-4.4 MPa at the curing age of 28 days. A 20% waste LCD glass powder replacement (31.8 MPa) can fill up finer pores and accelerate hydration. The control group had a higher 50 V-SSD resistivity (1870-3244 o.cm), and the PZT group had a lower resistivity (1419-3013 o.cm), meaning that the resistivity increases with the replacement of waste LCD glass powder. This is because the waste LCD glass powder contains 62% SiO2, which is a low dielectric material that is an insulator. Therefore, the resistivity increases with the SiO2 content.

Due to enhanced construction requirement, ready mixed concrete are being popular day by day. The current study aimed to develop ready mixed concrete using GBFS contained cement and determine its properties of fresh and hardened states. A real scale experiment was set up in a ready mixed plant for measuring workability and compressive strength. The workability was tested after mixing (within 5 minutes), 30, 60, 90, 120 and 150 minutes of the running of bulk carrier. The ready mixed carrier employed spinning motion i.e., rotating around its axis with 20 RPM and running on road with 1km/h speed. The mixing ratio of cement: sand:gravel, water to cement ratio, super plasticizer were, 1:1.73:2.47, 0.40 and 6% of cement, respectively. The chemical composition of raw material was determined using XRF and the properties of cements were measured according to ASTM standards. The experimental results confirm that the cement with composition of 6.89% of GBFS, 4% of Gypsum and 89.11% of clinker showed the good compressive strength and workability of concrete after 150 minutes of the spinning motion in bulk carrier.

Reactive powder concrete (RPC) is a type of ultra-high strength cement-based material with a dense microstructure, which is made of ultra-fine powders. RPC demonstrate a very brittle behavior, thus adding fibers improves its mechanical properties. In this study, it was attempted to investigate the effect of using steel and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) fibers as well as their combination on the properties of RPC. In this regard, hooked-end crimped steel fibers together with short PVA fibers were utilized. Steel and PVA fibers were used with the maximum volume fraction of 3% and 0.75%, respectively, and also different combinations of these fibers were used with the maximum volume fraction of 1% in the concrete mixes. In total, 107 concrete specimens were prepared, and the effect of fiber type and volume fraction on the physico-mechanical properties of RPC including compressive strength, tensile strength, modulus of elasticity, density, and failure mode was explored. In addition, the effect of the curing type on the properties of compressive strength, modulus of elasticity, and density of RPC was evaluated. Finally, coefficients for conversion of cubic compressive strength to cylindrical one for the RPC specimens were obtained under the two curing regimes of heat treatment and standard water curing.

This article presents the flexural behaviour of reinforced fly ash (FA)-based geopolymer concrete (GPC) beams with partial replacement of FA for about 10% by weight with paper sludge ash (PSA). The beams were made of M35 grade concrete and cured under three curing conditions for comparison viz., ambient curing, external exposure curing, and oven curing at 60oC. The beams were experimentally tested at the 28th day of casting after curing by conducting two-point loading flexural test. Performance aspects such as load carrying capacity, first crack load, load-deflection and moment–curvature behaviours of both types of beams were experimentally studied and their results were compared under different curing conditions. To verify the response of reinforced GPC beams numerically, an ANSYS 13.0 finite element program was also used. The result shows that there is a good agreement between computer model failure behaviour with the experimental failure behaviour.

In this study, the behavior of the number of anchorage bolts on the glass-fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) plates adhered to the surfaces of reinforcing concrete (RC) T-beams was investigated analytically. The analytical results were compared to the test results in term of shear strength, and midpoint displacement of the beam. The modelling of the beams was conducted in ABAQUS/CAE finite element software. The Concrete Damaged Plasticity (CDP) model was used for concrete material modeling, and Classical Metal Plasticity (CMP) model was used for reinforcement material modelling. Model-1 was the reference specimen with enough sufficient shear reinforcement, and Model-2 was the reference specimen having low shear reinforcement. Model-3, Model-4 and Model-5 were the specimens with lower shear reinforcement. These models consist of a single variable which was the number of anchorage bolts implemented to the GFRP plates. The anchorage bolts of 2, 3, and 4 were mutually mounted on each GFRP plates through the beam surfaces for Model-3, Model-4, and Model-5, respectively. It was found that Model-1, Model-3, Model-4 and Model-5 provided results approximately equal to the test results. The results show that the shear strength of the beams increased with increasing of anchorage numbers. While close results were obtained for Model-1, Model-3, Model-4 and Model-5, in Model-2, the rate of increase of displacement was higher than the increase of load rate. It was seen, finite element based ABAQUS program is inadequate in the modeling of the reinforced concrete specimens under shear force.